


Juno Steel and the Highly Relatable Meme of the Dog in the House That's On Fire

by onetiredboy



Series: slowly this time, naturally this time [2]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Accidental friends to lovers, Fluff, M/M, Movie Night, Rita & Juno Steel are Best Friends, Rita Appreciation (Penumbra Podcast), Rita is a Good Friend (Penumbra Podcast), haha what if you were cold and i leant you my jumper.... haha just kidding... unless..., it's so rare for me to write plain fluff but i did it for yall, juno steel is thicc rights, just.... all fluff, ladies night, let them be in love, ok now that those important tags are out of the way, peter nureyev has no ass rights, rita & peter are best friends, set somewhere in season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 09:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21205688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onetiredboy/pseuds/onetiredboy
Summary: It started like most movie nights upon the Carte Blanche do. That is to say, it started with Rita.





	Juno Steel and the Highly Relatable Meme of the Dog in the House That's On Fire

**Author's Note:**

> is this likely to happen? No. am i GAY? yes.

It started like most movie nights upon the Carte Blanche do. That is to say, it started with Rita.

She accosted me while I was trying to have a drink and some time out in the common room. I’d just come back from a mission on a planet that was decidedly _not _somewhere I’d like to go for vacation, to put it politely, and I was in desperate need of a bath, a good night’s sleep, and maybe a lullaby telling a story about a planet where absolutely no bugs existed.

“_Al-_right, Mistah Steel, now you promised me you’d watch Superstellar Ninja Cats with me last Friday night, and don’t tell me you didn’t, cause I recorded you agreeing to it on my comms just so that you couldn’t argue with me about it again and I’ve been waitin’ all week while you were on that spider planet.”

Rita had figured out a while ago that one of the top priorities in my newfound journey towards reclaiming control over my life was appreciating her more and cherishing our friendship, and I had a funny feeling she was exploiting it.

“And you can’t say no Mistah Steel cause you said yourself that you’ve gotta spend more time with the people you care about like me and Mistah Whats-his-name, and seeing as he’s already asked to join us tonight I’m thinkin—”

“N—Ransom’s joining us?” I turn on my chair towards her and Rita raises an eyebrow.

“Oh, I see how it is,” she says, “You ain’t got no time for Rita, but the moment tall, sharp and handsome is gonna join in…”

“I didn’t say that. I was gonna join anyway Rita, you know that,” I mumble quickly, “Just… doesn’t seem much like Ransom’s kind of night out.”

“Oh, he’s real friendly now that you two are all apologised, boss, and it turns out he really likes joinin’ in on ladies’ nights. Not that I can really call it a ladies’ night on account of him not bein’ a lady like you or I, but while you were away I figured out he’s real good at paintin’ nails and doin’ makeup so I’m thinkin’ we allow him to be an honorary lady anyway.”

“And he actually wants to join in?”

“Ya-huh, Boss, he likes my shows and everything, he said so himself.”

“Huh.”

“And he _especially _wants to watch this one Boss, have I told you about it already? So it’s set on Pluto except back before the war in the 23rd Century when the Solar Government and the Outer Rim fought for who had ownership for it and in the middle of this war there are these genetic experiments, see, and in the process of the—"

“Okay, okay,” I stand up from my chair, “You gonna talk my ear off all night, or are we gonna go watch Ninja Space Cadets—”

“Superstellar Ninja Cats, Mistah Steel—”

“Yeah, that. Wait—” I grimace, “Did you say Ninja _Cats_?”

“Okay great Mistah Steel I’m gonna go get set up in the lounge room you go get into your comfiest clothes okay byyyyeeee!”

Rita speeds out of the room in her tiny heels and leaves me alone to roll my eye at my drink. Damn Rita taking advantage of my habit of not listening the full way to the things she says. _Superstellar Ninja Cats_…

It was gonna be a long night.

“I see Rita was successful in convincing you to come along, Juno.”

You know, ever since we made it up to each other I was convinced that life on this ship would be that much easier. But when Nureyev’s idea of _comfy clothes _is a pair of high-waisted pants and a goddamn mesh tank top that is close enough to see-through, silver eyeshadow, red lipstick and silver earrings, I can’t help but feel like life would be a lot easier if he was scowling at me right now instead of smiling.

Jesus, he’s got a lot of skin on display right now. How does he deal with the cold? It’s freezing almost constantly aboard this tin can. I’m in my favourite sweater, and Rita looks like she’s stolen Jet’s coat by the way it almost wraps around her twice.

“…Yeah,” I manage after I pull my eye away, “Well, that last mission put me in the mood for some mindless garbage, so…”

“Mistah Steel! Superstellar Ninja Cats is _not _mindless garbage. It’s a subversive take on space colonialism _and_ cat psychology.”

Nureyev’s lips quirk into an amused smile and he turns to Rita, “I’m sure _Mister Steel_ will be thoroughly convinced of all of that once the movie begins.” He turns back to me, “I’ve been told you’re awful to watch a movie with.”

“What?”

“Oh, he ain’t all that bad, I just said you gotta get used to tuning out all his ramblin’—”

“You’re one to talk—!”

“_Especially _if you don’t want spoilers, cause Mistah Steel always has it figured out in the first ten minutes of the movie and if you wanna enjoy it with him you _gotta _watch it first or get yourself some earplugs and watch the subtitles cause it just ain’t fun once you know what’s gonna happen,” Rita finishes. I close my open mouth. Nureyev looks between the both of us, seeming very entertained.

“Not my fault all the movies have the same goddamn plotline…” I grumble, “Hey, if I’m so awful to watch movies with, why the hell do wanna watch them with me?”

“Cause my two favourite things are movies and you, Mistah Steel, even if you never shut up. And plus, you always pay for snacks.”

“Ah.”

“Now come _on_,” Rita urges. She plonks herself down on the floor in front of the projected screen, Jet’s coat billowing around her as if she’s been turned into a pile of clothes. “I ain’t waiting any longer.”

There’s a couch behind Rita which I opt for over the floor next to her; she likes to be as close to the screen as possible but I’m more of a comfort kind of lady. I sit myself down in the middle and Nureyev walks over.

“Didn’t pick you for the kind of guy who’d spend his evening doing this,” I say to him.

“Watching movies?” he asks, “Or specifically three-hour-long cat-based thriller-romance-comedies?”

“This movie is how long?” I deadpan at him.

Peter grins at me, his sharp teeth a brilliant contrast against his lipstick. He sits down on the couch beside me and then swings his legs up over my knees so that he’s lying down, “I know I say this a lot, but for an ex-detective you are really poor at researching things beforehand. Some things about you never will change after all, it seems.”

I am really not listening.

I’m currently trying to figure out where to put my hands. I end up putting one arm up on the back of the couch and, after a tentative moment, place… my other hand… on his knee.

I glance over at him, but he’s staring at the screen, so I figure he doesn’t mind.

This is fine. This is what people do all the time, especially friends, especially on movie nights. And hey, this is good, right? I mean, clearly this demonstrates that Nureyev is once-and-for-all over all that Miasma stuff, that we’re fully back to square one and ready to start building a relationship again. A strong, platonic relationship.

Yep. That’s sure what it is, Steel, and it took a long time to get even this far, so whatever you do, don’t go fucking it up.

The movie is pretty boring. The general plot, from what I can gather, is that the leader of a human-cat-hybrid tribe created during experimental warfare on Pluto accidentally falls for the human scientist teaching her how to be a ninja, even though they’re clearly on opposite sides, which is bullshit really because all you need to do is take one look at the way the scientist gets all tetchy when you mention his associate to realise that he’s got history with one of the cats from before this that left him hurt, so he’s planning on sabotaging the base and taking Pluto for himself, only he’ll get stopped at the last moment because earlier on in the movie they had a scene where the cat-lady heard something nobody else could, which means she definitely overheard him badmouthing his associate—

My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat. I glance over and Nureyev has both his eyebrows raised at me.

“What?”

Rita groans, “You was explaining the whole plot again Mistah Steel, just like I told ya, and now the movie ain’t half as much worth watching.”

“Oh, please,” I roll my eye, “It was obvious.”

“Maybe to you, dear detective,” Nureyev says, “But some others of us in the room aren’t quite as perceptive as you.” His shoulders are drawn in close to his body. For a moment I wonder if he’s actually mad, but then he shivers.

“You’re cold,” I say.

He grins, “That deduction is somewhat less impressive, but I’ll give it to you.”

“Do—do you wanna go get a jumper? Rita, can you pause—”

“I ain’t pausin’ for anything Mistah Steel, and you’re missin’ out on the story and this is a really good part so shut up and watch!”

“You heard the lady,” Nureyev says. “I’m fine, it’s not actually that bad.”

“You’re shivering.”

“It’s really not as bad as it looks,” he argues.

I roll my eye again, “Fine. Make this difficult.”

Then I take off my sweater.

It’s slightly less chivalrous and smooth than I thought it would be, mostly because I get stuck in the jumper for a bit and have to wiggle my way out of it, and I can hear Nureyev’s muffled voice through the fabric.

“Juno—what are you—”

“Here!” I hold the sweater out to him. The cold air shrink wraps around me and I regret it immediately. “Put this on.”

Nureyev blinks at me, his slender fingers closing around my sweater, “This won’t fit me.”

“And?”

“And now you’re just going to be cold, detective.” He pushes the sweater back into my arms, “Don’t be stupid.”

“You’re like eighty percent skin and bone, Ransom, I’ve got a little more body heat to spare than you,” I deadpan at him, shoving the sweater back at him.

“I still don’t quite feel comfortable just letting you—”

“Oh my God just _share the goddamn jumper or something, okay?_” Rita turns back and glares at us from the cocoon of her coat/blanket, “You’re missin’ out on all the best bits so listen here: Mistah No-Name, you put on the jumper, and Mistah Steel, you get those arms to huggin’, and then both your problems are solved, sheesh.”

“I think I’ve told you to call me Ransom about eight hundred times—”

“And I ain’t callin’ somebody by no fake name, so Mistah Whats-It-To-Ya it is, now _watch!_”

Nureyev sighs, and sits up on the couch, swinging his legs off of me to fold them up under himself. He pulls my sweater over his head. He’s right, it’s simultaneously too big at the neck and too short in the arms for him (no wonder Jet complains about getting Nureyev’s clothes custom tailored for heists, he’s got the body type of a beanstalk). The neck slides off of one shoulder and he raises an eyebrow at me as if to say ‘_see?’_

It would be a lot more convincing if he didn’t somehow make it look designer.

“It looks better on you than it does on me,” I say without thinking. His eyes focus on mine and for a second my heart drops in my chest.

Then he laughs, leaning into me so that his head rests on my shoulder, “I somehow doubt that very much. You haven’t seen what you look like in it.”

I—

I don’t even know what to say to that.

He has the same cologne. I try not to smell it, but I don’t have much of a choice when he’s this close. There are so many memories attached to that smell; of a mask, of a train, of a bomb. Of… a kiss, and slender hands, and a sleepy-muttered ‘call me a fool…’.

All in the past, Steel. I breathe deeply and shuffle on the couch, wrapping one arm around him. This is fine – this is friends, and I sure am happier with us being friends than enemies. So this is totally all okay. In fact, it’s nice.

I really hope he can’t feel my pulse with his head leaning on me like that.

After a moment or two, Rita glances over, probably to make sure we haven’t started arguing and getting distracted from the movie, and when she sees me with Nureyev curled up around me, she gives me a look. The look says ‘_Mistah Steel, you sly son of a gun’_, and I glare at her. As if she didn’t suggest us cuddling up on purpose: she can read me like an open book and there’s no way she isn’t fully aware of everything I feel for Nureyev. Then she looks back at the movie.

“Well, at least we seem to have satisfied our hacker,” Peter leans his head off of my shoulder, probably to save his neck from bending down.

I sigh, “Yeah, for the time being, until she comes up with whatever next list of demands for us to complete.”

He laughs and it makes me laugh too. I turn my face into him and kiss his cheek.

Then I panic.

I have no idea what I’ve just done – the smell of him and having him so close and being a little too comfortable with it was an awful combination in hindsight, and I turn my face away from him. I can play this cool: friends kiss each other on the cheek all the time! Hell, Mick Mercury has laid a smooch on me every single time we see each other since I was, like, ten years old. So this is fine.

_This is fine_ seems to be my mantra for this evening.

I don’t even look at Nureyev, but he moves. My heart races when I feel him get closer to me. I turn to him to say something, some kind of joke about concentrating because Rita will be mad at us if we can’t recite this plot back to front by tomorrow morning, but the words die in my mouth when I look at him.

He looks… I’m not quite sure what the look on his face is. I start to grin and it gets frozen too, drops right off my face again. Whatever I do next, I resolve not to look at his lips. Absolutely, under no circumstance, should I—

I look.

…And he kisses me.

It’s… just like I remember. No. It’s better than that. It turns my stomach weak, and I don’t even have time to think about – hell I don’t even _care _about why, or why now, or—anything. All I have time to focus on is how much I _missed _this, how much I missed _him_, how many times I’ve thought about kissing him before now.

I break away from him and mutter his name: a secret between the two of us in the gap between our lips; low enough that Rita can’t hear. He kisses me again.

It’s the kind of kiss that feels like it’s going to last for the rest of my life. Until…

A loud gasp from the floor in front of me crashes me back to reality. I break away from Nureyev, eyes wide. He’s looking similarly horrified, and I only hope it’s at being caught out and not that he’s just realising what he’s done. I glance at Rita.

“Mistah _Steel!_” she storms, “Mistah Steel, you just missed the best part of the movie and now I gotta skip it back and—ohh! _Ohh! _You’re meant to be spending time with your best and prettiest friend and instead you’re so caught up on Mistah Hello-My-Name-Is-Blank that you just missed the big reveal!”

Nureyev laughs breathlessly.

My head is spinning, but I try and find some words in the mess, “Which reveal, Rita? The one where it turns out the scientist’s associate is a cat-lady himself, or the one where it turns out the main character cat-lady makes a break for it and ends up taking over Pluto?”

“The one where it turns out the cat-lady is a scientist in disguise!”

I blink. “Huh. Whaddya know. I didn’t see that one coming after all.”

“Rrgh! Mistah _Steel_!” Rita groans and reaches for the remote.

Nureyev clears his throat, “Actually, my dear,” he says, and I really hope I’m not imagining the scratchiness to his voice, “I think I might go back to my quarters.”

He gives me the flicker of a look and I feel my stomach drop in a totally different way.

“Uhhh…” I pull my eye away from him and grin, “Yeah, actually. Um. Me too.”

Rita groans again, “Fine! But listen here, Juno,” – and wow, first name means she’s being serious for once – “Those walls are too damn thin and if I have to hear a single second of you two shovin’ it in my face how single I am I am _not_ lettin’ you have _any_ of the pancakes me and Jet are making tomorrow, ya hear me?!”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Nureyev promises with a rushed voice.

Rita rolls her eyes and mutters something like, “Your own boss ain’t got any time for you cause he’s too busy gettin’ with a thief who ain’t even all that attractive anyway, as if we all ain’t noticed there ain’t much fillin’ out the back of those jeans…” and then I don’t hear the rest, because Nureyev grabs my wrist and leads me out of the room.

It’s… a nice night. We get some talking done.

We get, uh… some not-talking done, too.

This time Nureyev doesn’t fall asleep so easily. He brushes his fingers idly over my scars as we lie tangled up together in the sheets and talk in low voices about anything. I’m not sure which one of us falls asleep first, to be honest, or if he even sleeps at all, but when I wake up he’s already looking at me.

“Still here,” he quirks an eyebrow at me. I punch him lightly. But it’s not as funny as maybe he meant it to be.

“Still here,” I affirm.

He smiles. Then he leans over and kisses me quickly.

“I’m sorry,” I say to him. “This should’ve happened a long time ago.”

He smiles again, sadder. His fingers brush the hair out of my face and he just… looks at me. I’d pay anything to know what he’s thinking right now. But some things aren’t mine to know.

“How about we go get those pancakes Rita promised, hm?” he says at last.

“Yeah,” I grin at him, “Yeah, Nureyev. Peter. That sounds good.”


End file.
